As Pirate Queen aims to set sail with their debut album Ghosts, I got to sit down with guitarist Patri Grief to discuss the new album, her influences and some of her stories from her early career thus far. This was a fun conversation as we talked about the influences that led Patri here today and we nerd out about the music world. Patri is clearly passionate. I can’t wait for what is to come from Pirate Queen as they’re locked and loaded to be the new stars of the metal world!
Thanks for talking with me today. I’m interested to know how the band got together?
Well, we’ve known each other for 500 years back in our land of the Island of Lyxion.
In the real world, it was a little bit harder. However, thanks to the technology you have on earth, it made it easier to find people who would want to be a part of this project. It was a challenge at first to find people that were good enough to compose songs and perform the music, but also free enough to commit to a band of this style. So I looked for everybody and found the people that met the standards of what we were looking for.
It was all thanks to the internet.
When would you say that passion to create music first started?
Mine personally? I have absolutely no idea. Well, since I was a kid, the first memories I had were of singing and banging some frying pans together to make up some weird-ass drums. I had been begging for a guitar since before I can actually remember, but since I was very small. I don’t know where it came from as no one in my immediate family plays music or anything. Yet, after so much begging my uncle got me a classical guitar when I was 8. Ever since then, I’ve been playing and I’ve never stopped learning.
What was the first song you learned to play on the guitar?
I remember strumming chords, I just followed the basics. The first song I learned to play was a Spanish tune. It was either called Rosanna or was by Rosanna, I don’t exactly remember, but I remember the experience of learning the song and learning how to change between chords when I was 8 or 9 years old.
However, when I think of the first real song that I learned, I got an electric guitar sometime later and I started to get into Heavy Metal. It was “The Pursuit of Vikings” by Amon Amarth.
Is there much of a metal scene in the area, if not how did you decide to become the first of your kind?
Well, Lyxion is a very small place and there are not a lot of musicians. Also, it’s really hard to get into the Bermuda Triangle from the Mainland, so you don’t find much here!
However, here on the mainland, we all popped up from different places and from different countries. Well, most of us are from one country and Her Majesty is from the UK. Here, in Spain, the metal scene is a little weird. The big bands don’t tend to tour here extensively, or just leave Spain off the tour completely. If they do tour here, it’s the two main cities and that’s it. There is some underground. However, I wouldn’t say it’s massive. People tend not to attend the concerts if they don’t know the band or they’re not friends with the band. It depends on the city. If you’re in Madrid there’s a higher chance of getting people to take a chance on you.
Are there any other types of music you’re into outside of heavy metal?
As a classical guitar student, I would say I’m really into classical. I’ve always liked it and I’ve always liked mixing classical with metal. Lately, it really has become a big thing for me as it’s a part of my growth as a musician, not only the technicality of it but learning the theory of music. It’s also a great reference point for the stuff I want to do in the future.
Also, just anything that is made with passion and is well done I will probably like it. It doesn’t matter the style, outside of one or two styles that I can’t stand. For the rest though, I think I can get into most music. Like, I could attend a concert in any genre, for example, I like Lady Gaga a lot. She’s an incredible musician and composer and I think she’s very metal, if she decided to get into a metal band I think she’d totally rock it.
Yeah, I can totally appreciate that. I think about what you said about combining metal and classical and it’s interesting to note the similarities of heavy metal and classical on a compositional level. It’s probably why a lot of metal bands tour with classical orchestras.
Absolutely. I think most of our contemporary music comes from classical anyway. When you understand classical music you understand everything. It’s a shame because when you say classical to people most people default to Mozart or Beethoven and that’s it but there are a lot of different periods of classical music and each one is completely different from the others. If you understand the history of music, you can take that and incorporate that into your playing.
Though that’s true across the board. If you get blues music, then you can take that understanding and translate it through your music regardless of genre. Having an understanding of music really nourishes your compositions.
Would you be able to break down how the songs on Ghosts were written and produced?
We all worked from home and sent all the tracks back and forth. If anyone had anything to add they recorded it and sent it to the rest of the band. Her Majesty worked a lot on the lyrical side, the orchestration and the vocal melodies, so she did a great job there. Working from home was really comfortable so bless the internet for that. It allows you to work hard but in the comfort of your own home.
We all worked well together considering that we all come from different heavy metal projects and styles. Since we had a lot of this collective knowledge it really added up in the creative process.
For this album, we wanted to create a presentation album. Like, this is us and this is what we do. We didn’t want to go hardcore into the more conceptual part of the band. We wanted this album to be a collection of short stories that would be an introduction to what we will be doing in the future. We are planning on doing a full concept album with a beginning, middle and end. Then after that, we will be able to explore other genres depending on the subject of the song.
So, since you were all so spread out when it came time to make the music videos. How did that all get arranged and come together?
We all went to Barcelona to get the videos recorded. That was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. We all met in person on those video shoots, as we had only met online. So we got to know each other and we went through experiences that bonded us together. It’s not only the video shoots, it’s all the production and time around it. You know, being tired together is one of those things that will bond you to anyone in the world.
Definitely, it’s that feeling of being at the end of the day but you’ve got someone who’s been through the same grief as you, that’s what friendships are built on.
Absolutely. So, we went to Barcelona and we stayed in a hotel. Luna, Her Majesty (her boyfriend) and I shared a room because we had to. First, we went to record at Insomnia, which is an incredible horror-themed hotel. It has a whole escape room where for everything you need, you need to play a game. So if you want the Wifi password, you have to play a game. They were too scared for some of it so I had to do it for them. We were there for 13 hours or something crazy like that. Then we went back to the hotel to sleep for two hours because we wanted to catch the sunrise for the video for “Pirates From The Sea”. The whole process was very tiring.
On top of that, I was driving and my sense of orientation was terrible. It was a nightmare. We got to the place in one shot and recorded in the morning as any later it would have been horribly hot. Then we were going to go back to the hotel to take a nap, but what should have been a 15-minute journey took 45 minutes, because I didn’t know the best way to go back. So, yeah. We wandered around Barcelona for a stupid amount of time. However, it brought us closer together and we made a lot of jokes. In the end, we had so much fun.
Sounds like a right hoot, especially with people you’ve only just met! So I just want to talk a bit about you. Who are your major influences in music?
I have a lot of influences! For general guitar and for heavy metal!
When I first started getting into metal I listened to Mägo de Oz, a folk metal band that’s kind of the starter folk metal band for teenagers. Then I quickly shifted to Nightwish, Epica, Delain, Sonata Arctica, Rhapsody of Fire, and Stratovarius. Then I started to get into heavier stuff like Amon Amarth and Children of Bodom, who are like my all-time favourite band. It's such a pity that Alexi is no longer with us, he was so young!
As far as guitarists that influenced me. You’re talking about Alexi Laiho, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Michael Amott. Also now you have so many YouTubers that are super influential like Nic Nocturnal is amazing, Bernth who mixes a lot of classical with other genres, and Ichika Nito is also a crazily talented musician.
Then you have the inspiration. Like I want to be her when I grow up, that’s Joan Jett. She was one of the main characters of my childhood.
What do you feel distinguishes Pirate Queen from other bands of the same genre?
I think about music as something that has been going on since the beginning of humanity. It’s very normal to find any similarity between any band or artist. Especially those that exist within the same genre. So I don’t know if there is something that is 100% original. You will always find a melody or a chord progression that sounds the same as something else.
However, what we bring to the table is the way of looking at a “band”. People are starting to become more open-minded to music and people are not as tribal with their genres. Like it’s getting rarer to find your die-hard metalhead who will say, “I only listen to black metal and everything else sucks”. So, I don’t think people are really like this anymore. I think people are more interested in finding different songs they like from different artists and putting them together in a playlist or, for most, Spotify or YouTube will do it for them.
I think the days of people getting an album and listening to it cover-to-cover are mostly over. I’m sure some people do that, but I think the vast majority of people now won’t listen to a full album unless they’re a full-fledged fan of the band. I think now, we are looking forward to doing music differently. We don’t want to do the same song with different chords over and over again just to please an audience that could be fickle. What we want to do with this band is to tell stories and explore the genres, within the context of metal, to create an atmosphere around the stories that we are telling. The stories of Pirate Queen are very important in shaping the music.
For example, “Pirates From The Sea” is a presentation song. It’s catchy and memorable but it’s not very complex. However, as you dive more into Ghosts you can hear the darkness as you can hear more of the themes that we’re trying to relay. That’s what we’re aiming for, to make each song its own story. This is something that’s been explored in classical music, but this is not so common in heavy metal.
We also want to incorporate the crowd into the shows. In a way, they are part of the show rather than the spectator. It’s going to be a different way of playing shows. Those are the things that separate us.
If that’s the case I don’t think I’ll wait for you to come to the UK, I want to experience that! I know you’ve said you want to do something out of the ordinary for your headline shows but who would be some of your dream bands to tour with in the initial stages of your career?
Well, playing with Nightwish would be a dream come true. Teenage Patri would be thrilled!
Right now, I think it would fit to play with Alestorm, I think that would be a hell of a lot of fun. I think that is meant to be. We would like to play with WindRose. They really go for it and have the whole setup and aesthetic. I think their style matches ours really well. Another would be Powerwolf. I think any themed bands that go all in with the staging and the costumes, all of those would be perfect to tour with.
So, finally. What is the hardest thing, personally or professionally, that you’ve had to overcome and how did you overcome it?
I think in my professional career as a musician there’s something that springs to mind. The other band I’m in, which I created with a lot of love and passion, has been scammed twice out of a lot of money. We wanted to arrange a tour with two “supposed” managers and we’re still working on getting that money back. It’s been really tough to get your dreams crushed by someone else. This was before being hired for other projects. So there I had somebody that I trusted and worked with for a year and suddenly he ran away with some money that’s mine. They kept saying “Yeah we’ll send you the money tomorrow” and that has been going on forever. We had to report him to the police. Then we got another manager and they asked for money as that’s the way it goes. People pretend to be organisers and managers. They asked for €2000 and then ran off. That was money that we had saved from a lot of shows and then it was all taken away by someone who never answered back any communication.
It is demoralising, but in the end, this is what I’ve always wanted to do with my life. I always dreamed of being a professional musician. I’ve practiced my ass off. I’m now studying at a conservatory of classical guitar so I can incorporate all of that into my playing. I’m really a die-hard student, I love it, it’s my passion. My whole life revolves around music. Now, I can finally say that I’m starting to make a living off of music, which makes me super happy. In the end, you are 1% of what happens to you and 99% of what you do with it. What I learned from that situation was how I adapted to it. Firstly, I gotta try to get that money back, second of all I will never work with anyone like that again. I’m done with non-professionals because in the end, it’s just going to bring you problems. Lastly, I need to take care of the people I surround myself with. The people we’re with now are true professionals, they know what they’re doing and they care about me.
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Pirate Queen releases debut album "Ghosts" on May 3rd, 2024.
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